


Cooking by the Boof

by OneFourOneTwo



Category: Tattered Weave
Genre: Cooking, Gen, Light-Hearted, Werewolves, light to moderate violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 08:11:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12128235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneFourOneTwo/pseuds/OneFourOneTwo
Summary: In which absolutely nothing goes according to plan.





	Cooking by the Boof

There was a full moon in the Enchanted forest.

Well, presumably. Assuming Lenta was correct and their records weren’t wrong and the moon hadn’t been torn to shreds 300 years ago, anyway. Granted, Othidar did suppose the night was a bit brighter than it usually seemed, which did lend a fair bit of credit to Lenta’s “astronomy” but if the moon had been destroyed it wouldn’t surprise him.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. For some reason, some of the best ingredients tended to pop up in the woods every 28 days or so. Crystal clear spring water, extra potent herbs… heck even bad berries tasted tolerable when picked under the presumably-full-moon. He had no idea why it worked, and after a rather long-winded and overly technical explanation from Lenta, no longer cared. The point is he had been craving a good, bad, and berry smoothie for a while. Well, not so much the bad part, but the rest of the smoothie always managed put a slightly less sour look on his face. And this seemed like the perfect opportunity to take out the bad and replace it with mediocrity. Which sounded fairly disappointing on paper, admittedly, until one realized that if bad berries under a full moon become mediocre, then mediocre berries must become good, and good berries must become great. 

Admittedly it was a somewhat half-baked thought process, but hey it’s not like Othidar needed much of an excuse to muck about in the kitchen.

He soon spotted a cluster of distinct red, delicious looking berries. These were of course horribly poisonous bittersweet nightshade berries, but luckily good berries tended to grow nearby. And sure enough, there was a squat little bush at the base of the nightshade, growing berries that, in addition to looking delicious and red, would not give anyone who ate too many a bad case of death. 

As he was gathering berries, he heard a crack behind him. This wouldn’t normally be a cause for alarm, if not for the fact that the sudden noise made him realize how none of the usual sounds of the forest at night were present. Except for the almost imperceptible noise of something large approaching him from behi-aaaand time to move.

Othidar rolled out of the way, just in time to avoid the beast’s lunge. And it was certainly something you’d describe as a beast- some kind of large canine with an eerily intelligent expression and glowing red eyes. Yep, looked like a werewolf. Guess the moon was full after all.

Now he just had to survive long enough to report this fantastic scientific discovery to Lenta.

The wolf growled at Othidar, approaching slowly. He backed up, slowly reaching towards the sizable nightshade bush next to him. while wasn’t entirely sure sudden movements would be a good idea, he strongly doubted that the creature would allow him to simply walk home backwards, and really one of them would have to do something at some point. And he was armed with about two thirds of a plan…

He plucked a couple berries off the nightshade bush, just in time for the wolf to lunge at him. He intercepted the wolf’s jaws with his fist, squeezing the bitter and not actually very sweet at all juice into its mouth. It yelped at the taste, recoiling and running in the vague direction of the nearest stream to wash the horrible taste (and poison) out of its mouth. The wolf would be fine, probably. But was he? He did just punch a werewolf… in the teeth…

He held up his hand, which was still dripping nightshade juice. Actually hang on was that blood? Some of that looked like blood. Kind of a lot of that actually. Not to mention his hand was stinging in at least three distinct unpleasant ways, which began to spread entirely too quickly for his liking. He wasn’t totally certain whether or not nightshade was toxic enough to be a problem if it got in open wounds, but although he was ok with furthering science he would really rather live to talk about his contributions (preferably in front of a large crowd, his toxin-addled brain added. Perhaps that science boy would give us an award…). He stood shakily, trying not to get blood and/or poison on whatever berries he’d gathered that hadn’t been ruined by his completely necessary combat roll, and began to stagger towards Lenta’s tree. 

About halfway there, he was shaken out of a worringly attractive line of thinking about what color of fancy suit to wear to his definitely-going-to-happen acceptance speech by the sudden realization that he was in immense pain. He doubled over, hooking the bag of berries on a nearby branch before completely losing consciousness and collapsing.

He was eventually woken up by yet more pain, this time localized exclusively to his stomach. Hunger, that’s what it was. On the bright side, he smelled something absolutely scrumptious nearby. In a little sack on a branch. He stood up to get it, and promptly fell over due to his legs not working. No matter, he could reach it from down here. He knocked it down, spilling its delicious berry-based treasure. One feeding frenzy later, and he was feeling only moderately sick with hunger as opposed to downright ravenous. Man, why was he so hungry? And why was he just… out in the woods at this hour? Let’s see… he’d made plans to make a delicious smoothie… he fought a werewolf… oooh yeah he’d have to report that to someone. It’s not every day you see a werewolf in the enchanted forest, and if you foolishly ignore it then it soon does become every day, what with their infectious… bites… Oh. Right.

A quick self-examination confirmed that he’d been turned into a grey-furred and surprisingly fluffy werewolf.  
Well then. That would certainly explain the hunger. Even now he was getting a craving for blood- _red berries_ , he reminded himself. He took a bit to focus on how absolutely delicious this smoothie would surely be and how he definitely did not want to go on a murderous rampage. I mean really, murder? Why would you do that when you have three kinds of delicious berr- okay, two delicious kinds and one sort of ok kind? Speaking of… 

He turned towards what remained of his scavenging efforts, which in this case was a few reddish stains on the ground. Delicious smelling stains, granted, but not like they’d be good in a smoothie. On the other hand- well, paw, now-, there was a completely neutral scent just above his head… He looked up and was delighted to find that this tree was conveniently a bad berry tree! He carefully harvested a few of the berries and was soon off to find the others, his tail wagging behind him. Lenta could wait a bit.

Locating more good berries was a trivial matter, given their distinct heavenly aroma. It was slightly trickier getting them away from the bush without accidentally devouring them all, but after the third time he was able to restrain himself. And he knew of a nice and mediocre patch of berries not too far from Lenta’s tree, so he’d be fine if he didn’t run into any trouble, similar to that other werewolf he had just caught the scent of.

His ears stiffened a bit as he heard the wolf padding slowly towards what looked like one of those new kith from that beach. An amourtis or something like that? Poor thing seemed a bit lost, their large eyes slowly rotating, getting a glimpse of the large and wonderful forest around them. But completely oblivious to the wolf within striking distance. 

He should probably do something. That wolf didn’t stand a chance. 

Othidar yelped at the wolf, preparing for another clash and sincerely hoping double lycanthropy wasn’t a thing. The other wolf spun around, recognition and panic in their eyes. A growl rose in their throat. And stomach.  
Hm. Now that he thought about it, he had gathered a fair amount of berries. He could probably make a double batch…  
He pawed vaguely at the nearby mediocre berry bush. The other wolf, relieved they weren’t under attack, relaxed a bit. Othidar removed a few of the least distinguishing berries and nudged them towards the other wolf, before backing off and watching the other wolf, who ate cautiously. While they did so, Othidar gathered more berries and, making sure he had enough left over, made a trail leading to the base of Alban’s tree. Now all he needed to do was sneak his friend inside his shop… which was about 30 feet of ladders above him. 

Well, stealth was clearly not an option. Aside from the fact that there was no way he and his friend could get up to his shop (and more importantly, kitchen) without help, Alban had already opened their door and was looking at the two werewolves, mouths stained a conspicuous shade of red from berry juice, with a fair amount of concern. They noticed Othidar’s distinct berry pouch and smiled humorlessly.

“YOU SEEM TO… BE IN _RUFF_ SHAPE…”

After a one-sided conversation and several incredibly articulate whines, growls, and various other canine noises, Alban managed to get both werewolves inside and into Elven Cuisine with only minor complications. Granted they did request “ALL THE… _JUICY_ DETAILS” as soon as possible. The other werewolf was gnawing at a piece of leather Alban had donated, occasionally taking a break to pursue an interesting smell. Meanwhile, Othidar was preparing the smoothies. Or trying to anyway. Luckily most of the kitchen tool shad enough magic to run themselves with a little prodding, so while there were a few issues there with him having to run around on countertops he really could be doing worse. Thing is, it didn’t quite taste right. Granted, it tasted pretty much exactly how it should, but it still felt like it was missing something. Could it perhaps be that badness was just that important of an ingredient?

This cheesy moral was subverted by Othidar catching a whiff of something smooth, sweet, and incredibly appetizing. He looked over to the werewolf to see that they’d managed to get into his stash of chocolate hazelnut spread... Well, what was left of it.

…you know what forget the recipe. Time to experiment. Luckily he still had some raw hazelnuts and chocolate…  
About an hour later, the final concoction only slightly resembled the original plan. The good berries had been removed (and soon messily devoured), for being too sweet, and replaced with some more tart cranberries that had some subtle flavors that mingled excellently with the yogurt and hazelnut. He’d even diced up a golden apple and mixed it in, because it had seemed liked a good idea at the time. Hey, it did say “For the hungriest” on it, and they both seemed pretty hungry…  
He knocked his briar rose over, tipping the resulting smoothie into a couple of bowls. One bowl was presented to the other werewolf, who had been stealing bits of ingredients and watching with some curiosity for a while. The other was… oh. Already empty it seemed. Also delicious. My WORD he hadn’t had something so tasty in… quite some time. He’d have to write this down and come up with a catchy name for it… Later though. For now he was tired. The other werewolf was too, and had curled up under Othidar’s bed, with their tail poking out a bit. Apparently, the food had been delicious enough to fill both wolves up and make them realize they’d been prowling around outside for the past few hours and seriously what time was it any sensible person would be asleep by now.

Granted he supposed he’d stopped being sensible when he invited a werewolf into his home and made him a smoothie. But in any case he was fairly exhausted. He climbed into bed and was soon fast asleep.

 

After hearing nothing but silence for a good long while, Alban poked their head in. They’d been keeping an ear out for any signs of trouble, and while silence did mean that there wasn’t a fight going on, it did not necessarily mean that the two werewolves hadn’t fled the tree and were now somewhere in the forest, gallivanting around and making a pack of any passersby. 

Luckily, this was not the case, as they saw a pair of furry figures near Othidar’s bed. One underneath, tail wagging slightly. And one poking out from under the covers, with faintly prismatic, shimmering fur.

**Author's Note:**

> All right, here's this thing. more may or may not come, depending on if I can come up with something good, but assume it ends here for now. hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
